With One Tuneup Left, U.S. Has Biggest Test Yet

BARCELONA, Spain — For 40 minutes Sunday, the United States men’s national team and Argentina exchanged as many elbows as made baskets and Kevin Durant played dual roles as resident sharpshooter and bodyguard of point guards.

This exhibition game, friendly only in the technical sense, sometimes looked more like a rugby scrum. At one point, Durant stepped between his teammate, point guard Chris Paul, and Argentina’s burly, bearded forward, Luis Scola. Words were exchanged, perhaps in two languages, along with some light shoves.

When it ended with an 86-80 victory by the Americans, all sides labeled the skirmish minor, far from an international incident. Instead, Team USA insisted this was exactly the kind of challenge it needed with its first Olympic basketball game less than a week away: a rough, close contest that Coach Mike Krzyzewski called “our first real international game” and a “great game for us.”

Durant summarized the evening thusly: “I won’t let anybody get in the point guard’s face.”

This, the fourth of five exhibition games for the United States in advance of the London Games, had been billed as the Americans’ most difficult test yet. Early on, it felt more like pop quiz in which the Americans obtained the answers beforehand.

The United States trampled Argentina early. It was easy to forget that Argentina ranked among the most experienced and successful international teams of the last decade. In the opening barrage, Durant dropped in three 3-pointers, Kobe Bryant scored 10 points and the United States took a 19-3 lead — in the first two and a half minutes.

Durant made four 3-pointers in the first half alone; his length (6 feet 9 inches with long arms), accuracy and the shorter international 3-point line proved a deadly, almost unfair, combination. The United States also compiled 11 assists on 16 baskets in the first half.

Argentina withstood the initial salvo and trimmed the deficit slowly, until at halftime the once insurmountable American lead stood at a manageable 47-40.

Fans flocked to Palau Sant Jordi early, coloring the arena in a kaleidoscope of N.B.A. jerseys: hundreds of jerseys that covered decades of players and most teams. One fan wore a Durant Seattle SuperSonics jersey. Another wore the Nets’ No. 3 of Drazen Petrovic, the Croat who died in 1993. One group wore three different Carmelo Anthony jerseys (Syracuse, Knicks, USA Basketball).

Photo

Carmelo Anthony during a win against Argentina on Sunday. The U.S. has one exhibition left, against Spain, before the Games.Credit
David Ramos/Getty Images

The United States team arrived in special uniforms as well, retro duds designed with a nod to the Dream Team, which won a gold medal here in 1992. Current American players and coaches took a few hundred questions about their predecessors before they practiced Sunday. They seemed overwhelmed by the topic, if not mildly annoyed.

Krzyzewski, an assistant with the Dream Team, said what he remembered most was the way that team changed international basketball, how it elevated interest across the world. His players, while deferential, mostly shrugged. When David Robinson, a center in 1992, traveled here to reminisce, he met Anthony Davis, the youngest player on the United States team. Davis shocked Robinson with his birth year: 1993.

In some ways, the sustained excellence achieved by Argentina was a byproduct of the Dream Team and its international influence. Led by Scola and Manu Ginobili, Argentina won the silver medal at the 2002 world championships and captured gold at the Athens Games in 2004.

This Argentina team, with eight players over the age of 30, was supposed to be too old for true contention, on the wrong end of a last hurrah. Yet each time the United States appeared primed to pull away Sunday, Argentina kept it close.

It nearly tied the game late in the fourth quarter. Ginobili drove left, drew contact from Anthony and banked in an off-balance layup. The ensuing free throw made it 78-74. Durant and Paul answered with 3-pointers, and Team USA ultimately held on.

After four exhibition games, the United States has answered many of the questions that followed it through training camp earlier this month. The condensed N.B.A. season has not led to Olympic fatigue, not yet anyway. The undersize roster, with plenty of taller players but only one center in Tyson Chandler, has not been a problem on offense or defense. Again, not yet.

Instead, Krzyzewski continued Sunday to tinker with his lineup, so myriad are the options. Durant again started instead of Anthony, and Durant’s 27 points led all scorers. Krzyzewski said Durant “looked like he did in Istanbul,” when he won most valuable player honors at the 2010 world championships. Krzyzewski also started Paul at point guard instead of Deron Williams.

Another exhibition, against Spain here Tuesday night, loomed as the Americans left the court without a hint of celebration. Spain represents the biggest threat to their gold medal chances in London, and here, at the site of USA Basketball’s greatest moment, the latest Team USA hoped to send a statement greater than the one it made Sunday.

Which was, roughly: nobody gets in the point guard’s face.

A version of this article appears in print on July 23, 2012, on page D6 of the New York edition with the headline: With One Tuneup Left, U.S. Has Biggest Test Yet. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe